Cong, NCP to contest 125 seats each in Maharashtra poll

The Congress and the NCP will contest 125 seats each in the upcoming Maharashtra Legislative Assembly elections, NCP president Sharad Pawar said on September 16.

"We have agreed on a 50:50 formula," Pawar, a former union minister, told a news conference in Nashik.

However, no immediate reaction was available from the Congress side. The Maharashtra Legislative Assembly comprises 288 seats.

"The Congress and NCP will contest 125 seats each and will leave 38 seats for allies," the NCP founder-president and former Maharashtra chief minister said.

Last week, Pawar had met Congress president Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi and discussed the finer points of the alliance.

NCP will give chance to "new faces" in the polls, Pawar said. Some seats will be exchanged with the Congress, he added.

The Congress had won 42 seats while the NCP had won 41 seats in 2014 polls. The BJP had emerged as the single-largest party in the state with 122 seats.

In 2014, the two parties had contested the state elections separately. NCP had then ended the 15-year alliance after the two parties had been unable to reach a seat-sharing arrangement ahead of Assembly elections.

The finalisation of the seat-sharing pact between the Congress and NCP comes after many high-profile exits from both the parties, more so from the Pawar-led outfit.

Many of those who left have joined the BJP and a few have sought shelter with the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena.

With inputs from PTI.